Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

There are also in-game visuals that highlight the Hunter. So it would still remove that for them.

I did see your idea, thanks. A plague type mechanic might be cool... it would require Humans to split up or risk others contracting the effects (although this is somewhat represented with the horde spit). These changes would require a major patch though and are not possible in a tuner patch like this. We always appreciate input though!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The Flares. I don't how I feel about this yet, but its a start for those whoe play 1v1.

Ducking to recharge energy faster....Cool. Really cool.

The upgrade to toxic spit is really nice. A longer duration and more damage feels right considering it is used in specific situations.

The Sense spit still feels useless as Xenon said. People have ears and can just look around. The only thing the spit provides is limiting your FOV considering the spit is still on your screen.

(Increased NightHunters knockback impulse from melee attack) - ???? What does this mean?

The negatives:

WHY WAS THE CROSSBOW EVEN TOUCHED?!

Seriously the crossbow and normal bow deal piss poor damage now. It doesn't make a huge difference at all if you even hit them.

It took skill to aim a crossbow. You had to aim your shots most the time, and sometimes even predict ahead of your opponents to see where they will go since its a projectile weapon. The extra burst of damage that the Impact gave is what made them really special that made the difference between life or death. With this elemental nerf and the Bow and Crossbows damage nerf its make them feel like nothing over all.

The Poison Bolt were special because they could finish off a hunter who had 15 health left or lower. Now it deals only nothing. The poison cloud from the bolt, YOU HAD TO AIM FROM, and now it does nothing.

Also the headshot damage. That is a joke. A really, really bad joke. When the headshot thing was first discoverd it required skill and luck in order to aim at their heads. The reward was an instant kill with Impact Bolts or heavy damage. Either way it felt rewarding and required alot to aim at their head. Now you expect us to aim at this very tiny hitbox for damage that shouldn't have been messed with in the first place.

Who was this catering to? Seriously, who was thing catering to? To the Hunters that decided to stand still and take arrow shots like idiots? The bows should have never been touched they were fine as it was. It's already bad enough that guns themselves deal very poor damage.

Also the Elemental nerf. It makes both Modified Weapons and the Elemental damage from Bows worthless. When you modifiy a weapon it was to deal extra damage with set bonuses that give Damage Over Time. Now blueprints, the thing which people ran around the maps to find for those effects, are now obsolete. Bleed, Fire, Electricity, Poison, even Ice now deal next to nothing damage.

If this was because cheaters using "modded" weapons with effects that don't exist that still shouldn't have been an excuse to remove elemental damage all together. Instead you guys should have focused on the source of the problems, and if this wasn't because of cheaters than this was an utterly a dumb idea.

Molotovs. I understand that they were a problem, but to outright make them useless and unusable. WHY? They deal no damage now and the cooldown for them is too ridiculous.

Cloak Potions also suffer from this as while the buff is nice, the cooldown is too harsh. For the Night Hunter Booster I can somewhat understand, but this is still too harsh.

Lastly if charged melee attacks were that much of a problem all you had to do was remove repairing during invasions rather than reduced the damage. It makes sense as someone from another post even mention that weapons don't lose durability.

Reduced elemental damage on Nests (it was good as it was, only thing to fix was fire+explosive glitch)

Added 3 second cooldown to nightsense pulse (redundant... who complained about this xd)

GENERAL

Reduced damage while in PVP paired anim states (NightHunter and Human) (in 1v1 stupid idea, no logic at all, when hunter misses the attack he should get the full damage not a chunk. In 2,3,4 v 1 it is good but doesnt addresses the problem when humans can do dropkicks to hunter multiple times before he can even regain control..... it allows noobs to do a "chain of dropkicks", hunter eventually has to get close to human, when he got dropkicked at least one time it usually means a death to him. Another thing techland should fix is getting killed from DFA while pouncing other players.... this is a bad joke from the day one) hunter should be immune to DFA while paire anim states because in 4v1 even best hunters are getting killed by noobs who are just waiting for hunter to be defenseless when hunter does tackle or Ground Pound to other player).

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Credit where it's due, first of all - even if it isn't as significant, a list of changes on a two year-old game of this type is still commendable. So, a few notes:

1. Without being completely reworked or excessively buffed, Sense Suppressor will always be useless. You just can't substitute a spit that can almost guarantee a kill on a single Survivor (UV Suppressor) and a spit that is the only thing that can somewhat combat a team with a spit that... what, removes something that is in no way needed to survive? All the spits should do is take away something that a Survivor needs in order to stay alive, though obviously still having a chance to save him/herself. For example:

- UV light - absolutely essential to combat the Hunter, which is why UV Suppressor is a great spit

- Safety on ground - the massive pressure that is put on a Survivor to get to a roof before he/she instantly dies and having to fend off the Hunter at the same time is irreplaceable.

No game is perfect, no game has patches that bring its multiplayer aspects the perfect balance. Honestly, accepting Sense Suppressor is the mandatory useless slot is okay.

2. Toxic is good as it is. It's largely situational, and most of the times I've used it or it's been used on me it has done its job. More damage is well received.

4. This initially seems like it would just make it impossible to perform Claw + Ground Pound, but would it also mean that you can fling back Survivors that come in for the kill when you're out of Energy? Haven't tested it yet, but that would be very useful.

5. Elemental damage wasn't used on Hunters much, but it's still good it's reduced.

6. Finally. The crossbow is/was just... so unbalanced. Anything I say here wouldn't even scratch the surface of the stupidity that is facing a 4-man team, each member equipped with 2 crossbows, so I'll just say thanks.

1. Larger respawn time is good. Could be better in other ways, but it's not a big issue.

2. Well, that at least saves us the time of having to go in our inventory and throw out the normal flares.

3. Flare cooldown change is interesting. Seems like it's mostly intended to give a Survivor one more chance to remain alive, and if he screws that up as well then it becomes difficult to survive. However, two flares in 3 and 4v1s despite the cooldown is still too much to handle. Guess the sea of UV will be back...

4&5. Definitely needed

6. Uhh... why? Who uses charge attacks on nests?

7. Guessing this is the fix for Explosives + Molotovs, so that's good.

8. The Hunter stays pinned on your radar for 10 seconds before you need to use Sense again, so how does the 3-second cooldown change anything?

1. By far one of the most needed changes, yet... DFA punish after every single animation, successful or not, remains untouched? Seriously? I would really appreciate it if I can just get an answer whether or not this is the way it's supposed to work when you're facing a team, though I don't see how this game design is supposed to be fair. I can understand failing a Pounce/Tackle/Ground Pound and being punished for it, but when you have 2-3 crows standing up high and waiting for you to engage the Survivor on the ground so they can instantly kill you when you do anything is just... stupid.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Thanks for the feedback so far. I also appreciate efforts to keep it constructive

3 hours ago, Vallon said:

when you have 2-3 crows standing up high and waiting for you to engage the Survivor on the ground so they can instantly kill you

In this specific situation you mention, it's up to the Hunter to recognize what's happening and attack the "crows" instead of the "bait"

I'm not convinced DFA needs further tuning right now. It's been nerfed a couple times already. Humans can't pull you out of a successful animation...they can time it perfectly and grab you as soon as it ends though.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

These changes messed up the game I've been getting alot of complains about it nobody is playing the game anymore why is the crossbow and bow even touched and on the other hand the game like how it was before it was amazing please make it like how it was before everyone would appreciate it

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Also I should mention on the regard of the Instant Tackle and Ground Pound+Spit combo. Despite that it wasn't able to be fixed this update I really do not how it can be fixed. As it stands Night Hunter needs these two moves. Many Hunter players know how infuriating it can be to miss a Ground Pound which almost all the time leads to death for just missing and having to wait for the long, recover animation. Spits are also an issue because if players were to use spits normally, 90% of the time they will miss. It is literally that easy to dodge spits which led to Hunter players forcing to use near unavoidable techniques on Survivors; such as using animations to make Survivors unable to move and, of course, the Ground Pound+Spit combo.

Instant Tackle is important because of how easy it is to dodge Tackle in general even with the incredible speed of Tendril Sprint. Missing with Tackle can also lead to death or taking massive damage forcing Hunters to retreat, and even though the reduced damage during animations are a thing, players have managed to time attacks accordingly whether it would be 1v1 or fighting against teams.

So as much as I hate to say this, Hunter needs these moves until a truly better solution can be made in account for how these moves operate. Many players wanted more moves/skills so that can be a solution right there seeing as Toxic and Sense Suppressor Spit, and UV Heal were added a long time ago. If you can somehow fix this it would be really surprising.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Sense suppress buff - Good change. That spit got low impact against skilled players, so why not. Least they even have to suffer it for longer.

If SS-spit also remove or even somehow disort game sounds it would be very effective tool. + Maybe removing map too so players couldnt see teammates or nests.

Toxic spit damage and duration - Correctly used hunter spunk was very effective, but after this buff its really dangerous. Toxic also provides safe haven to DFA:s (least in 1vs1): if survivor proceeds DFA to hunter standing on toxic he dies himself too.

Hunter knockback on claws - Dont yet know what to think about this, but guess its not bad! Least its easier to knock players off roofs :). Can this prevent getting double clawed (tendril claw)?

Elemental damage on hunter - So basically hunter takes no more damage from molotovs, gas cans (I liked the baiting), toxic/impact/electric... bolts/arrows. If this was fix to molotov spam, I think just that cooldown would be enough.

Throwing stars and -axes damage 0 hp. Why?

Bolt & arrow damage - As I stated on that other thread, this is weird idea. Bows damage is now ridiculously low considering how hard it is to hit hunter flying around like speed demon. Some hunters are moving so fast and unpredictable that theres no even time to wield the bow - unless they are in animation (and reduced damage in animation gives rightful help to hunters on those situations). And what, no even slightest damage from bolts blastwave/toxic cloud?

Seems like people are now starting to use automatic firearms more and im considering it too. They do the job too but of course sprayed the kill isnt nowhere near as rewarding as that perfectly aimed single, slowly moving bolt straight to escaping hunters butt.

Yes I symphatize alot hunters who play against full team of wannabe Legolasses, but in the other hand thats why theres damage scale and animation dmg nerf.

I really dont get where this came from; I havent seen players complain about bows, except those few hunters who cry about everything (2-handed, uv-spam [dafuq], dodge spam). #makebowgreatagain

Human respawn time - any change what helps hunter in 1vs3/4 matches is in place. If hunter manages to split team up, he deserves more time to enjoy the advantage given by damage scale before dead survivors respawn and gather up again.

2 flares and cooldown - Well 30 sec is long time in match. However if survivor loses his UV, loses his flare and cant even get hunter killed - he deserves to die. I like the flare be the last option - not something to throw like candies. I like candies.

Molotov cooldown fix good.

Reduced charged melee attacks on nests - Sometimes nests spawn to circle formation, so players can just go center and spam some whirlpool™. Tbh didnt see any problem in that. Theres also other ways to kill nest in seconds with heavy melee normal hits- should be nerfed too?

Survivor sense cooldown - Barely noticed any difference on this. I think cooldown should be longer to it to work as intended?

Reduced animation damage - This one is dramatic. In 1v1 survivor successfully evades tackle and hits hunter with heavy melee straight after it, he does only around 40 hp damage instead of ~120hp. Oh yea, if he doesnt get instatackled before he can say "Battle Axe of Titans rules ok"

Now hunters can chain tackles quite fearlessly because punishment for missed tackle is so small. And best trick to avoid insta tackle and still make some damage to hunter - just staying back and shooting with bow - is now useless because low bow damage combined with animation reduction makes total damage given just ridiculous.

In 2-4 player matches lower animation dmg is easier to accept.

After this patch people are saying "hunter is like tank and humans nerfed af". I dont totally agree with this, but maybe theres small truth. Its lot harder to kill hunter now, but tbh even after these changes, I still enjoyed every match and didnt feel like hunters wipe floor with me.

However now these changes feel bit weird. Afterall people just wanted instatackle and gp-spit to get fixed but quite the opposite happened: hunter got more advantage to its side.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Reduced animation damage - This one is dramatic. In 1v1 survivor successfully evades tackle and hits hunter with heavy melee straight after it, he does only around 40 hp damage instead of ~120hp. Oh yea, if he doesnt get instatackled before he can say "Battle Axe of Titans rules ok"

There should be no change in this situation. The Hunter should be out of the paired animation...that's why the survivor can hit them in the first place

Damage mitigation was already in place as well...Paired anims only took 50% damage previously...this was lowered to 33%

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

There should be no change in this situation. The Hunter should be out of the paired animation...that's why the survivor can hit them in the first place

Ah yea took another look on it and youre right. I tested it by doing heavy melee-gp straight after evading tackle: if human starts GP too quickly after tackle, the melee hits to hunter while it is in animation and thus damage is so low. So just have to be bit more patient with it - or do something with all that spare time during airflight, like shoot a bolt

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Nice patch, now i can move around Human and don't lost HP so much with motolov spam.
And Instant tackle... i think it's not really scary, because Hunter need near a wall to do it (faster Human).
or move to left of Hunter, or Jump when they do it.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

First of all, I'd like to thank you so much for finally adding changes to the BtZ situation. It took you guys a year to figure it out but I'm glad you're working on it.

Your changes so far have been great, however I do not agree with three of them:

-The sense suppressor spit needs a complete rework, and we most likely need to go as far as fully removing it, as it is still a hit or miss, completely situational depending on who you're facing. A newbie would obviously face tons of problems and die instantly, but a semi-experienced human just listens closely to his earphones, searching for hunter footsteps which happen to be very loud. The human proceeds to drop a flare and camps out a nest. I believe we need an applicable camouflage, rendering survivor sense completely useless for a very short duration (around the 3 seconds), giving the hunter a chance to actually make them feel like prey, instead of the sense spit. It would also fit his character better.

-The survivor sense needs to be a panic button instead of part of the survivors' main toolkit. Primarily they should rely on their senses such as listening to the loud footsteps of the hunter, and when he believes he is close, he could press Q to reveal his general location for a short period (2 seconds) before having a massive 10-20 second cooldown. I think this would be fair.

-Now defending the humans, I believe the crossbow/bow has been nerfed way too hard for 1v1's. Now it's completely understandable how every nighthunter including myself got arrow spammed to death in a 1v4, in a 1v1 however, a lucky shot should feel rewarding. Headshotting a speeding monster is no easy task. In a 1v1 it should guarantee an insta-kill for punishing the hunter for standing still or it should drop him down to 5 HP. Body shots would require 3 at most. The damage should be scaled accordingly to the amount of humans in a game.

That is all I have to say for now, again thanks for willing to balance a 2 year old game.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

And Instant tackle... i think it's not really scary, because Hunter need near a wall to do it (faster Human).

Are you not aware what are you saying? Instant tackle can be done in the moment hunter hit something or stay at place, it doesn't need any wall.

You can perform instant tackles in all cases when hunter was in motion when entering animation which involves:

- standard dodge

- pounce interrupt

- being dropkicked while running (can tackle other human in vicinity)

- having human in range after first succesfull tackle (double tackle)

For some reason, the game doesn't cancel momentum values at the moment hunter enters animation, which can be proven by the fact that that one day when hunter was forced momentum reset when turning too fast around, backward instant tackles weren't working while other like double tackle could been still perform.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Everything was an improvement, also kudos to you for trying to balance this rather old game.
I would like to note that the event that took place these days show that the game is very unbalanced still favoring the humans...
The results were 476170 (lets put an easier to see number 477000) hunter kills vs 373282 (374000) human hive kills.

As hunters we have to kill 10 times, humans have to destroy 5 hives. So to at least be 50-50 the hunters should have killed 374000 times 2 (748000).
You see the difference?
477000 to 748000?

Now i am a player the likes to play hunter and on top of that I hate picking on the weak, it is often that i teach a new player how to counter me as hunter because I like the thrill of the hunt and the weak don't fight back (boring). So i won't say anything to be easier on the hunters side, just possible.

On even grounds, a perfect human player wins over a perfect hunter player because (consider everything to be even grounds, not situational stuff):

hunters are fast but dodgeable

tackle (dodgeable and punishable)

ground pound (easily predicted and dodgleable)

spits (imagine you as a human only having a crossbow as a long range and having an enormous cd on each shot, only the "arrow" doesn't go exactly where you want and it starts to fall at a certain distance and sometimes sticks on a tree leaf or a tv cable, light posts, posts wires. There was this time that the spit stuck on the air. Also if you count on the spit explosion area, that can be easily dodged most of the time)

Humans on the other hand have an arsenal of things and can't be dodged like they do with hunters (crossbows/bows, guns, melee wps, throwing wps, bombs, potions, flares, DFA, they can dodge anytime and drop kicks)

Want to start being balanced, remove animations on both sides or at least when I ground pound at the same time as a human make them take dmg or suffer a knockback or make that when a human gets tired they can't dodge the tackle and make so that the "tackle dodge" consumes stamina, how much i really don't know but i guess not much, about 1/6 of the stamina bar.

Also i never understood why there is such a consequence when i miss my ground pound. Humans can miss their DK and be rather fine, if i miss my GP it is most of the times a certain death (or not miss, because it doesn't count as a miss if they dodged it)...
How many times have I seen players turtle in their flares and bait my ground pound so that they can kill me (UV block is not always an option because CDs), give the GP a chance, if i miss once it will count as I have hit but if i miss again in 30 sec then I will be tired or whatever (just like the 3 demolisher tackle).
The ground pound area is flat also, I once hit a human's head trying to ground pound (i knew it wouldn't hit but it seemed so logical) i literally smashed the human head, something should happen but no, he just killed me on my failed atempt.

The thing about hunters is we have a few not so effective approuch choices while humans have all the kit to be the real hunters.

And the punish of me dying is so hard because I die once, they take a whole hive most of the time. So humans can die 9 times effectively, I can die 4 times only (assuming they do not start to goof or to hunt me)...

And when I die I start on the other side of the city on top of the long CD to be back (especially on 1v1s), humans start closer to the hives and the CD is much shorter.

Another thing is that the humans have more dexterity than hunters, often I see a Human getting on top of a light post or something similar and shotting the nest, i can't tackle him, to try to GP him is too risky because if I miss there will be that long stagger and DFA will be a sure thing, pounce + UV = DFA, i have no spit other than the toxic and CDs is in the way so I have no other choice if i don't have the Toxic Spit than to give that hive spawn.

The end it all the CDs on spits are too long for such a poor return, every spit can be evaded from a distance and when you get it right, there is always something the players can do to deny completely of what of have just done (even in 1vs1) UV blocker spit should block players from throwing flares when there is 2 or more players I can understand that with one player it would be a certain kill, but on a 1vs2 and so on, it is mostly useless unless you were lucky to hit all of them of most of them and they have their flares on CDs which to this day i haven't seen that...

So to resume everything:

Balance ground pound, make it less risky

Balance spit CDs, they are not that powerful and accurate to have such CDs (I would prefer a smaler area of effect of the spit and with a shorter CD)

Make that UV block spit blocks flares usage too on 1vs2+ (this makes teamwork more important than ever)

Fix the spawn points on death

Tackles can't be evaded when a human is tired and make it that dodging tackles drains stamina

TLDR: Being a hunter is so unforgiving, to best a human you must play perfectly, to best a hunter however you just have to play, humans have much more means to punish a hunter's bad play.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

As hunters we have to kill 10 times, humans have to destroy 5 hives. So to at least be 50-50 the hunters should have killed 374000 times 2 (748000).
You see the difference?
477000 to 748000?

It's actually individual "Brood" that are counted for Survivors. Not "Nests". There are typically 10 Brood per game in a 1v1 match (2 per Nest). If the Survivor is doing well there may be more. In a 4v1 there maybe be up to 6 brood per Nest meaning there could be 30 Brood killed in a 4v1 with only 10 lives available for the Hunter.

The Hunters win the VAST MAJORITY of games. Always have, and always will. It's a "trial by fire" for survivors trying to figure out this game mode. The Hunter has a tutorial can can get a grip on the basics before they start. Survivors don't have anything similar.

I've written about this previously, but we have skill ratings applied to each user. This is used to determine ideal matches. Think- Gold vs Gold player matchups in rocket league. Or Silver vs Silver etc. These even matchups (across all tiers) are what we look at closely. And I can tell you that overall, across all game types (1v1 to 4v1) the results of ALL EVENLY MATCHED games across EVERY TIER is very close. (about 55% win ratio for Survivors, until the very highest tier... which is 49% Survivors)

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

It's actually individual "Brood" that are counted for Survivors. Not "Nests". There are typically 10 Brood per game in a 1v1 match (2 per Nest). If the Survivor is doing well there may be more. In a 4v1 there maybe be up to 6 brood per Nest meaning there could be 30 Brood killed in a 4v1 with only 10 lives available for the Hunter.

The Hunters win the VAST MAJORITY of games. Always have, and always will. It's a "trial by fire" for survivors trying to figure out this game mode. The Hunter has a tutorial can can get a grip on the basics before they start. Survivors don't have anything similar.

I've written about this previously, but we have skill ratings applied to each user. This is used to determine ideal matches. Think- Gold vs Gold player matchups in rocket league. Or Silver vs Silver etc. These even matchups (across all tiers) are what we look at closely. And I can tell you that overall, across all game types (1v1 to 4v1) the results of ALL EVENLY MATCHED games across EVERY TIER is very close. (about 55% win ratio for Survivors, until the very highest tier... which is 49% Survivors)

Pete, you confuse correlation with causation. It doesn't take long for a human to figure out the do's and dont's in this mode, so it should not be contributing to the VAST MAJORITY of games won by the NH. 1 or 2% at most.

The only reason hunters win the vast majority of the games is also not because the game is/was balanced yet, but they had to perfect their approach to the smallest detail. One mistake on the hunters' side equals 1 lost nest.

The NH with bad habits will gradually see his winrate decline until he faces the newbies again. After that, he climbs uphill only to see the big rock again, which he couldn't get out of the way last time. The rock went downhill on his path, set him back to square one. Rinse and repeat.

Then one day it hit (pun intended) him. He has to find a completely new method to deal with the rock. As a result, the rock was cleared out of the way and he could go further uphill again.

The hunter, having faced severe punishment by humans who knew what they were doing, unleashes his perfected approach on unsuspecting, less-experienced humans, which finally explains why the winrate is tipped to the NH's favour.

This is my theory, which I believe is the leading factor of the winrate issue, or lack thereof. Everyone would most likely come up with the same conclusion with a little bit of common sense. It is most definitely not your 'trial by fire' that caused this.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

This "may" is very random it seems... I just invaded and let the human kill all "nests" without touching him, supposedly he should be doing "well"... Nothing new, just the 2 "broods" there...

I see what you say but i don't see that in game. The punishing factor still stands, why do you think lower tier have a slight edge (if what you say is truth), because noob humans can get away with mistakes where hunters can't. You have to play very good against a decent human to not make the game a frustrating waste of a time. Also, I constantly search for humans to invade so i refresh a lot the serching screen, the amount of solo players is astounding and then there are some duos, most of the experienced players play solo or duo, all groups of 4 players were noobs or not that good (this is a personal experience here), but the amount of solos and duos indicate that:

Could be that the game is not as played as before therefore making 3-4 players rarer

The balancing starts to really kick in with 3-4 players, the hunter starts to be more useful (CDs are shorter, health is properly balanced, etc), thus making players stop going in 3-4

There was this player who could evade all my tackles atempts and one shot me or leave me with 30 health... So tackle was out of the options too.

Being a hunter is frustrating as it is, the way mechanics work makes you feel like a pile of trash sometimes, you are a hunter, humans should be running from you, it is humiliating to see a human hunting you because he can, he has the means not to fend you off, but to hunt you... Survivors shouldn't have the means to one shot you, they should have the means to keep you at bay...

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

As always, we appreciate everyone's feedback! The biggest thing I can suggest right now for Hunters that are struggling, is toalways pick fully green bars under the matching category. This will help you to match up with someone of your equal skill level. As I mentioned in the previous post, Hunters are winning close to 50% of these equally matched games.